10 Most Claustrophobic Movies Of All Time

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Another claustrophobic classic from a British director at the top of his game, Ridley Scott's Alien follows the crew of commercial starship Nostromo after they are unexpectedly awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home from deep space. The cause is a distress call from an alien vessel, and when the crew decide to board, an unknown organism attaches itself to one of them and the rest is sci-fi history.

Scott was so insistent that the movie had an uncomfortably claustrophobic feel that he specifically asked his set-builders to have ceilings that were no higher than seven-foot-four, though the finished product didn't look right to him. After doing the rounds with a tape measure, he discovered that the ship's ceilings were actually seven-foot-six in height, and he ordered them to drop it all by two inches.

The suffocating set proved a challenge for the cast and crew, though the end product justified the director's attention to detail. The tension Scott managed to create was palpable from the moment the crew board the stifling ship and continues to build right up until the death. The design of the titular Alien may be the handy-work of artist HR Giger, but it was Ridley Scott that masterminded the terror.